13th September 2023
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11th September 2023
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9th September 2023
The Foundry.
Despite a government program set up in 2017 meant to dispose of Arkansas’ used tires while being self-funding, these eyesores—and some argue, health hazards—are literally piling up around the state.
This was completely predictable.
Yet no amount of failure can convince even the best-intentioned politicians and bureaucrats that when it comes to matters of the economy, their ability to plan almost always falls short. The so-called Tire Accountability Program is just one more example.
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8th September 2023
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8th September 2023
Read it.
Air Force Chief of Staff Charles Q. Brown Jr, Biden’s nominee to replace Milley as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had signed off on a memo to impose a 43% quota for white male officers in the Air Force. That would be catastrophic at a time when the Air Force is struggling with recruitment, faces a shortage of over 1,000 pilots and 86% of its pilots are white men.
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7th September 2023
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6th September 2023
Revealed: how US immigration uses fake social media profiles across investigations (The Guardian)
U.S. power sector, states say Biden’s carbon rule is unrealistic (Deseret News)
Republicans ask Buttigieg for information on ‘disturbing’ aviation, rail safety failures (The Hill)
WATCH: Biden Forgets the Year He Became President
Media Stunned by How Weak Biden Is Against Trump
Oversight Subpoenas Mayorkas, Others on Hunter Probe
Former Harvard Journal Editor Accuses Biden of More Plagiarism
Mexican Officials Place Slab Of Berlin Wall Next To Open US Border As “A Lesson”
Report: Texas Floating Border Wall Proving Ineffective
Hispanic Democrats want Biden to cut the red tape for migrants (The Hill)
Proof That Bidenomics Has Been A Catastrophic Failure
The Kids Are Not Alright: Biden’s Creepiest Interactions with Children
What an Army Colonel Biden Wants to Promote Had to Say About Elizabeth Warren, Confederate Statues, NFL Kneelers
James Comer Subpoenas Mayorkas for Hunter Biden Records, Nets Ignore
Breaking News from 1988: Biden Lies a Lot!
Biden’s Green Energy Inflation Reduction Act Needs A Big Bailout Already
Biden administration to announce cancellation of Alaska wildlife drilling leases-sources (Reuters) There is no effective limit to the damage that can be done by a dim-witted ideologue like Biden. Anybody who does business with the government deserves what they get.
While Millions Invade America, DHS Fights the Heat
WATCH: Biden Wanders Out in Middle of Medal of Honor Ceremony
Biden To Cancel Trump’s Oil Drilling Leases in Alaska Presumably they’ll give a refund to the state development agency that purchased those leases … but, these days, expecting honest dealing from the Federal government is often disappointed.
House Finds ‘Evidence of Collusion’ Between Biden’s VP Office and Hunter’s Business Partners
Biden Raised Taxes, but Tax Revenues Are Way Down This Year. Here Are 5 Reasons Why.
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6th September 2023
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6th September 2023
The Foundry.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has questioned the credibility of a doctor’s notes asserting that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is in good health, according to comments reported by Politico on Tuesday.
McConnell, age 81, has faced several public health scares in 2023, the most recent being when he froze while speaking with reporters in Kentucky on Aug. 30.
Paul, a physician and ophthalmologist, suggested that McConnell is suffering from a neurological issue, even as the attending physician of Congress has denied that McConnell’s freeze was prompted by serious health concerns, according to a report by Politico.
“You know I’ve practiced medicine for over 20 years, I’ve seen people who are dehydrated. What’s occurring, from what I’ve seen, is a neurological event, it’s not dehydration,” Paul said, according to Politico. “I think my advice would be to be more forthcoming with what’s going on.”
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6th September 2023
The Foundry.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell did not suffer a stroke or seizure after his latest freeze in public, according to a doctor’s note released by his office on Tuesday and shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
McConnell, R-Ky., 81, froze during a press conference in Kentucky on Aug. 30 and was unable to continue speaking before being led away, the second such instance that has occurred in public. After McConnell’s office published a note from the office of the Attending Physician of United States Congress that cleared him to continue his public schedule, his office published a second note on Tuesday that clarified the freeze was not the result of a seizure or stroke.
And if you believe that one, they’ll tell you another one.
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4th September 2023
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3rd September 2023
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2nd September 2023
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31st August 2023
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30th August 2023
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30th August 2023
John Hinderaker at Power Line.
We are observing the second anniversary of one of America’s worst foreign policy fiascos, the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. It was on August 26, 2021, when 13 American Marines and at least 170 Afghan civilians were murdered by a Taliban bomber at the Kabul airport. To say that the anniversary has passed quietly is an understatement.
A writer for the Atlantic, Franklin Foer, has an upcoming book on the withdrawal called The Last Politician. An excerpt was made public today, and several media outlets covered it.
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30th August 2023
Read it.
Police recruits join the force to help others and fight crime. Research confirms it. But priorities changed when sheriff’s deputies detained Eh Wah in Muskogee County, Oklahoma, and found more than $53,000 in his car.
Law enforcement training kicked in, and the purpose of the traffic stop switched from public safety to raising revenue. The deputies seized the cash and spent the next six hours interrogating Eh Wah, looking for any excuse to justify civil forfeiture, a process that allows the government to take and keep cash, cars and other assets without a criminal conviction.
Oklahoma agencies normally keep quiet about civil forfeiture, which is why the state ranks among the worst in the nation for civil forfeiture transparency. Oklahoma publishes no statewide reports, conducts no regular audits, and tracks only limited metrics.
The silence is strategic. The more people learn about civil forfeiture, the less they like it. But Oklahoma police and prosecutors have voiced opposition in recent weeks to H.R. 1525, the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act (FAIR), a bill that would reform federal civil forfeiture.
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29th August 2023
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29th August 2023
Read it.
Four members of the Texas National Guard are being disciplined, and their unit is being disbanded, after whistleblowers alleged they were using the WhatsApp communications platform to infiltrate and monitor illegal migrant and smuggler groups in violation of the organization’s rules against spying operations, according to a joint report by the Texas Tribune and Military Times.
According to the report, six military intelligence officials assigned to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star National Guard deployment at the border turned over the names of four officers who were using WhatsApp to join migrant and smuggler chat groups to solicit assistance in investigating “targets” the unit identified to federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security during a February 2022 meeting.
No good deed goes unpunished.
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29th August 2023
Roll Call.
The House Appropriations Committee could consider amendments to the fiscal 2024 Commerce-Justice-Science bill next month stripping federal funding from prosecutors who are pursuing charges against former President Donald Trump.
Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., a member of the House Freedom Caucus who also sits on the Appropriations Committee, announced Monday that he is working on two amendments to offer when the panel takes up the bill in early September.
The Commerce-Justice-Science and Labor-HHS-Education measures are the last two appropriations bills for next year that the full committee has not yet considered; no official schedule for September has been released.
Clyde said he plans to introduce an amendment to prevent taxpayer dollars from being used to prosecute any major presidential candidate prior to the upcoming presidential election, and a second that would prohibit funding for state prosecutions.
“Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars have no place funding the radical Left’s nefarious election interference efforts,” Clyde said in a statement.
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29th August 2023
Read it.
People who are actual professionals are accountable through licensing or malpractice liability. Physicians, architects, dentists, and civil engineers, for example, are accountable for the quality and fitness of the services they deliver. Plumbers, electricians, auto service techs, and roofers are all subject to implied or express warranties and bond requirements.
In stark contrast, the entirety of federal policy and law enforcement is now the product of increasingly unaccountable people. The operant theory, that elected officials controlling funding and appointments will provide accountability and protect the public interest, is no longer the reality. Civil service protection, the cult of experts, the replacement of shared ethical values with partisanship, and the sheer size of the Leviathan has created a new reality.
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29th August 2023
Read it.
Five months since the epic failure of Silicon Valley Bank – due to “a significant supervisory failure,” according to Dan Tarullo, a former Fed governor who oversaw financial regulation and supervision at the board – the man responsible for that ‘oversight’ at the San Francisco Fed is ‘retiring’.
Azher Abbasi will retire from his role as the head of supervision and credit at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco effective Oct. 31, according to an email from the bank’s spokesperson.
Welcome to the Deep State: Nobody gets fired, nobody goes to jail.
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28th August 2023
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28th August 2023
Read it.
Did you know that there is a federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)? But of course there is. And you might suppose that since pipelines carry mostly oil and natural gas, it would be housed inside the Department of Energy. But no: it is part of the Department of Transportation. So we have yet another instance of government cabinet department that does nothing to produce an increased supply of the thing it was created for (energy, but see also: education), while a department that is widely failing in its primary responsibility (transportation) has jurisdiction over oil and gas pipelines.
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27th August 2023
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26th August 2023
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25th August 2023
John Hinderaker at Power Line.
America’s public schools are almost unbelievably bad, to a degree that poses an existential threat to the republic. That’s the bad news. The good news is that most Americans are figuring it out. Rasmussen finds that a 36% plurality say that our public schools are poor. That is a remarkable finding. A sadly misinformed 9% think our schools are excellent. But that disproportion is revealing. The teachers’ unions aren’t fooling many people anymore.
Minnesota exemplifies the awful performance of our schools as well as any state; perhaps better than most, since at one time Minnesota’s schools had the reputation of being above average. Now they are terrible: 64% of Minnesota’s 11th graders can’t do math at grade level. Nevertheless, they are all going to graduate. Good luck competing with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, German, and other kids from across the world.
The latest test scores have come out in our state, and my colleague Catrin Wigfall explains at AmericanExperiment.org: “Majority of Minnesota students aren’t meeting reading and math standards.”
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24th August 2023
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24th August 2023
John Hinderaker at Power Line.
No former Democratic Party office-holder ever goes hungry. Democrats are great at finding jobs for politicians that don’t quite work out. A case in point is Minnesota’s Melisa López Franzen.
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23rd August 2023
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22nd August 2023
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22nd August 2023
Read it.
My selections are doing worse than usual in Biden Bingo. How are yours doing?
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21st August 2023
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20th August 2023
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19th August 2023
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19th August 2023
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19th August 2023
NewsMax.
The spike in migration was made possible by the discovery this year of a new route through Nicaragua, where relaxed entry requirements allow Mauritanians and a handful of other foreign nationals to purchase a low-cost visa without proof of onward travel.
As word of the entry point spreads, travel agencies and paid influencers have taken to TikTok to promote the trip, selling packages of flights that leave from Mauritania, then connect through Turkey, Colombia, and El Salvador, and wind up in Managua, Nicaragua. From there, the migrants, along with asylum seekers from other nations, are whisked north by bus with the help of smugglers.
And, of course, once they’re here, they’re here to stay.
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17th August 2023
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17th August 2023
The Antiplanner.
Washington state Democrats believe that a Portland-Seattle-Vancouver high-speed rail line is vital to the future of the Northwest. It is so vital, in fact, that they want someone else to pay for it, namely the federal government. The federal government, after all, seems to be unique in the world in that it can spend unlimited amounts of money without raising taxes to cover those costs.
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16th August 2023
John Stossel.
It’s August, when many young people head off to college.
This year, fortunately, fewer will go.
I say “fortunately” because college is now an overpriced scam.
Overpriced, because normal incentives to be frugal and make smart judgments about who should go to college were thrown out when the federal government took over granting student loans.
Why?
Because our government basically vomits money at everyone who applies.
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15th August 2023
John Hinderaker at Power Line.
The Georgia indictment relates to his (and 18 other defendants’) post-election efforts to reverse the apparent result of the 2020 election, in Georgia and elsewhere. That Trump made such attempts is not disputed. The question is, what did he do that was illegal?
The indictment alleges a vast conspiracy, supported by 161 “overt acts,” that ultimately comprises Count I, a violation of Georgia’s RICO statute. The problem is that, with two exceptions, the “overt acts” are all legal. You can’t aggregate a series of legal acts and make them a crime by calling them a conspiracy.
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15th August 2023
The Antiplanner.
First, planners identify a solution they want to implement. It might be light rail or high-speed rail, it might be urban densification, or it might be something like complete streets or vision zero.
Second, planners cast around for problems that they think they might be able to persuade people their proposal will solve. These can include childhood obesity, global warming, traffic congestion, or housing affordability.
Third, they use public involvement techniques designed to generate support for their plans. One such technique is the charente, a meeting in which planners strictly control the agenda to make sure that people only consider questions the planners want to answer. At the charities, planners might ask, “Do you want more congestion or less?” or “Do you want higher housing costs or lower?” Since they assume their proposals will reduce congestion or housing costs, if you answer less congestion or lower housing costs, they will claim that you support their plans.
Another technique is a survey with a limited number of questions. The San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Commission wants to increase taxes to subsidize transit, so it is asking residents to fill out a survey. The survey never asks if people want to pay more taxes; instead the higher tax is a given. Instead, it asks how people want to spend the money. There are five possible answers: transit, transit, bike lanes, transit, and transit.
Actually, this is a good description of any Democrat-dominated political regime devoted to increasing government power and government employee paychecks.
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14th August 2023
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14th August 2023
The Antiplanner.
At the latest count, 93 people died in the Maui fire that also burned most of the town of Lahaina. The blame for this fire can be traced directly to Hawaii’s 62-year-old land-use law, which was written to protect Hawaii’s agricultural industry but had the opposite result.
The land-use law divided the state into urban and rural zones and heavily restricted development of the rural areas. As the state’s population grew, Maui’s median home prices rose from about 3 times median family incomes in 1969 to 7.9 times median family incomes in 2021. Any prices above 5 times median incomes are unaffordable since banks won’t approve a mortgage for a home that costs that much more than a family’s income.
The stated goal of the land-use law was to protect Hawaii’s agricultural industry from urban sprawl. But high housing prices made it impossible for Hawaiian farmers to hire the help they needed as people earning farmworker pay couldn’t afford to live in Hawaii. As a result, most Hawaiian farms went out of business. Between 1982 and 2017, according to USDA’s 2017 Natural Resources Inventory, the number of acres in Hawaiian crop production declined by 72 percent as sugar cane, pineapple, and other crops moved to other tropical countries that didn’t have self-inflicted housing crises.
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13th August 2023
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13th August 2023
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